Tuesday, February 03, 2004

As my loyal readers may recall, I was quite busy yesterday over at Gothamist participating in a discussion regarding the role of anonymity in blogging. Gothamist has since closed these comments (see UPDATE below) because they became "personal/negative/off-topic".

As of Standard Deviance's last reading of the comments, which was around 12 am today, most of the comments seemed to be inoffensive, although perhaps something was posted after that. The majority of the comments respectfully disagreed with Gothamist's position on the issue. There was one person who basically called Jake a trust-fund baby, a comment which I found uncalled for, but nothing I would consider hurtful enough to close comments. As for off-topic, granted much of the conversation turned to Jake's view of the working world and Gothamist's lecturing tone in general, but I found those comments to be on the topic of the conversation if not necessarily on Gothamist's planned topic of the article.

It seems to me to be almost hypocritical for Gothamist to close comments given they argued that bloggers should stand behind what they say with their names and should be open for comment and criticism. Although the trust fund comment was certainly in bad taste, Gothamist could easily delete that comment and let the others stand. Night in the Big City and Whatevs also disagree with the closure. Perhaps Gothamist is tired of moderating the conversation, in which case they could certainly not allow further comment, but deleting an entire conversation that was interesting and important to many people merely because a few comments were slightly below the belt seems, to use Jake's word, "cowardly".

Don't get me wrong, I generally love Gothamist and their content. This week I especially enjoyed the post about the L being shut down and how the hipsters feel trapped like rats.

UPDATE: Gothamist has reposted the comments with a bit of editing. Apparently the comments that were deleted were the ones surrounding whether anonymous bloggers are cowards (and whatever other posts I didn't get to read) and the post about the trust fund stays. Bravo Gothamist for reposting the comments, and bravo Gothamist for being fair in your editing by deleting your posts along with others. I would have prefered no deletion at all, but given the alternative Standard Deviance is quite happy with the outcome.

Okay, that's enough blogger drama for this week.

Related Entry:
Shreds of Neighborhoodies are Flying at Gothamist